


Dreams

by CharismaticAlpaca



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 00:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6351409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharismaticAlpaca/pseuds/CharismaticAlpaca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dreams aren't real, but Danarius was.</p>
<p>----</p>
<p>A short Fenris/Marian Hawke oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> I asked my friend Darcy for a Fenhawke prompt, and she gave me "Dreams aren't real." Which was perfect in every way.

Dreams aren't real.  
He knows it. He tells himself every time he wakes up in a cold sweat with the lyrium humming. The problem is, Danarius was real. And the markings are still very much real. So the dreams may be harmless now, but the harm has been done, and the not-real dreams just bring the too-real hurt right back to the surface.  
He kicks off the quilt and stalks to the window, slowing his breathing, forcing himself to feel the cold night air swirling around in his lungs. This is real. The thick belt of stars overhead, peeking through gauzy clouds, is real.  
He takes in a breath, holds it until blackness creeps in around the stars. Then he grabs the windowsill, the wood cool beneath his hands.  
For the last three weeks, the same dream has haunted him. He stands in the corner of Danarius’s ornate dining room, just as motionless as the statues of writhing bathers and muscle-bound warriors along the other walls. He holds a heavy silver tray, a bottle of wine in the middle of it encircled by glasses. He has been standing still for two hours, and his arms shake. But he will not be dismissed until the dinner is over.  
He should not have to hold the wine. It is absurd.  
Danarius prattles on about one thing or another. In this edition, it is lyrium. How costly it’s becoming. How elementary spellcasting is becoming just as much a show of wealth as anything else.  
He counts the floor tiles to pass the time. This, too, changes each night. Now, there are seventeen in front of him. One of his feet is over a crack. Paying attention to the floor has made him want to move, but he cannot.  
He wishes he could blend in with the bright red drapery behind him. Because he is shaking. Because Danarius wants him visible. Because the dinner guest tonight has a smear of red over the bridge of her nose, setting off ice-blue eyes that bore a hole through him.  
He wonders if it’s blood. He wonders why it’s there. He counts fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. He shifts all the weight of the tray to one hand without disturbing the surface of the wine in the bottle.  
“Must have been expensive, then,” she says.  
He knows what she means.  
Danarius laughs. “Prohibitively.” He looks over his shoulder. “Almost.”  
A tremor takes his arms. Not fatigue; anger. The wine ripples. The conversation always leads here.  
Hawke drops a fat bag of coins on the table. Danarius nods. All the while, she watches him.  
Then the tray slips from his hands, and wine splatters across the white tiles at his feet. But it is too thick to be wine; it spreads lazily under his toes, and it is hot and sticky.  
Then Hawke is before him, dragging a hand through the puddle, and she straightens to smear her mark on his face.  
But dreams aren’t real.  
He leans forward on the windowsill, letting his hair fall over his eyes and obscure the river of stars overhead. His stomach churns. Danarius was real. That dining hall was real. But dreams are not.  
“Fenris?”  
Hawke’s voice, rough with sleep, is real.


End file.
